Three years ago today, Jennifer Weigel was on the floor of her Bay St. Louis, Miss., home, trying to stop the rising tide of saltwater from seeping in through a pair of French doors.

"I told my daughter to go down the hall and get some towels — old ones," Weigel said, remembering the admonition with a derisive snort. "Like that mattered."

Before the week was out, Weigel and her then-14-year-old daughter, Veronica, would lose the battle to keep the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina from cresting over the tops of their kitchen counters, toppling heavy pieces of furniture, washing away whole shelves of books and generally turning their lives upside down.

But there were blessings along the way.

First, the water departed almost as quickly as it came, creating a soggy spiral of clothing, bowling balls and other detritus as it flushed away, leaving a thick, black line on walls and windows.

The women had plenty of provisions, thanks to the bottled water and MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) stashed in the garage. They also had a freezer packed with enough shrimp and deer meat sausage to feed the National Guard.

"We invited them to dinner along with the neighbors," Weigel said. Feeding the Guardsmen was the neighborly thing to do, she added, "but there were bad people and looters around, and it was nice to have them there."

Otherwise, Weigel and Veronica fended for themselves. Using a knife found in Iraq by Weigel's Seabee husband, Jeff Weigel, they cut the home's sodden, wall-to-wall carpeting into strips, which they rolled up, carried outside and tossed onto a growing pile of ruined possessions.

Five days passed before they were able to barter gas from their inoperable cars for a ride out of town. The minute Weigel reached relatives in Alabama, she asked to use the phone.

And that was when she learned that as far as most of the world's TV news-viewing audience was concerned, Weigel, her daughter and every other citizen of Bay St. Louis was presumed dead or missing, victims of the storm.

Jeff, then based in Gulfport, Miss., but deployed to Japan, was already on his way home with several other service members, all of whom had been told that they likely would be called on to identify the bodies of family members.

Instead, Jeff drove five hours from Middleton, Tenn., to reunite with Jennifer in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Efforts to find others' missing loved ones had similarly happy endings.

"Everyone was OK," Jennifer said. "Out of the 70 that were missing, we didn't lose a single one."

Home fires

Today, Jennifer Weigel, 47, lives in a cozy duplex apartment on Naval Base Ventura County. There are fruit trees in the backyard and, in the kitchen, a refrigerator with a freezer compartment that she is filling with homegrown corn and tomatoes in anticipation of her husband's return from his 14th deployment.

As command master chief, Jeff Weigel, 47, is the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3. His picture is everywhere, including on the refrigerator door. In that shot, pinned in place by a magnet, he smiles while holding an oversized Mother's Day greeting and a "bouquet," both cut from sheets of cardboard.

"They all lined up to use the same flowers and the same sign," Jennifer Weigel said, smiling at the image.

Born in Fort Benning, Ga., she grew up surrounded by the military: Her late father was in the merchant marine in World War II and with the U.S. Army in Korea and Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.

As much as she dislikes being away from her husband — "He cracks me up all the time; he's my best friend" — she is at least familiar with the odd rhythms of deployment. And yet, with the couple's five children out of the house (Veronica is getting ready for her freshman year at the University of New Orleans), Weigel is glad to have a pair of four-footed roommates for company.

Sophie, a 12-year-old German shepherd, was with her during Hurricane Katrina. Pebbles, a 1 1/2-year-old Weimaraner, is a recent adoptee from the Ventura County animal shelter in Camarillo.

"It's my job to get her extra cute before he comes home," she said, laughing.

Volunteer effort

Weigel volunteers her time as an online discussion group leader for parents of young service members and makes a point of meeting every plane from Jeff's battalion, "just to show my support," she said.

She also is chair of volunteers for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, an organization that offers no-interest loans, grants and budgeting education to current and retired service members.

"We talk about learning how to save, how to see the difference between a need and a want," said Weigel, whose post-Katrina experiences make for a powerful teaching tool.

"We didn't have flood insurance, but we had savings," she said of facing the cost of replacing the contents of their rented Bay St. Louis home. "The reason we have furniture now is I was able to go shopping. You can't depend on FEMA, the Navy, the government or your momma. You have to depend on yourself."

Furthermore, "you learn not to replace stuff," Weigel added. "Before Katrina, we had something like 126 skillets in all different sizes. Now I have two."

Weigel is, however, starting to rebuild her collection of cookbooks, which numbered in the low 100s before the hurricane.

"You start with the basics, like Joy of Cooking,' and go from there," she said.

One item in her collection was truly irreplaceable: a late 1940s issue of Good Housekeeping magazine that contained recipes for Christmas cookies — and her late grandmother's handwritten notes about who in the family liked which cookie.

Weigel was able to salvage a handful of clippings and dog-eared recipe cards for "1950 Oatmeal Cookies" and other treats. She still refers to them when making cookie dough to bake and mail overseas or to freeze for future use. But lately, she has taken to replacing half of the all-purpose flour called for in every batch with whole-wheat flour.

"To be honest, I've never tasted these cookies," she said, sprinkling little pinches of sugar over chilled nuggets of ginger snap dough.

"Sweets aren't my deal anymore. Instead, I get perverse pleasure out of giving stuff away," she added with a laugh. "I think cooking for somebody is the most important thing — putting your heart into it and just putting yourself out there. It's so simple, and yet so magical."

She is similarly forthright about Hurricane Katrina, the anniversary of which she seems almost — but not quite — to have forgotten in her husband's absence.

"For me, it was not all terrible. You learn what you're capable of and how the community comes together to help one another," she said. "My husband and I are eternal optimists. For us, it's What's the next big adventure? What happens next?' You move on, because you have to."